Hastings Goes To Washington In Bid To Block Impeachment

September 12, 1986|By WILLIAM E. GIBSON, Washington Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON -- Beaming, laughing, throwing his arms around old acquaintances and glad-handing his way around a somber federal courtroom, U.S. District Judge Alcee Hastings came to Washington Thursday to try to forestall a panel of fellow judges from trying to get him impeached.

The South Florida judge played the role of an affable-but-sometimes-disgusted observer as he sat at the plaintiff`s table, watching attorneys wrangle over the legalities of the impeachment process at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell.

Attorneys for Hastings asked Gesell for a court order to stop the Judicial Conference, a panel of 26 high-ranking federal judges, from sending an impeachment recommendation to the House of Representatives. Hastings, who lives in Lauderhill and works at the federal courthouse in Miami, claims these judges unfairly are out to get him impeached on bribery-related charges even though a jury acquitted him in 1983.

Gesell has yet to decide whether to issue a preliminary order, but he offered discouraging words for both sides in the case.

Gesell said the bribery conviction of attorney William Borders, a friend of Hastings, indicated possible grounds for impeachment of Hastings.

``There wasn`t any question the evidence showed impropriety,`` Gesell said. ``That was confirmed by the Court of Appeals.``

Hastings and Borders were accused of conspiring to solicit a $150,000 bribe from two convicted racketeers in exchange for reduction of their sentences.

While reviewing the specific issues before him, Gesell said he and many fellow judges were concerned about the relatively untested law that allows the Judicial Conference to recommend impeachments.

The law, for example, fails to guarantee accused judges a chance to defend themselves before the judicial panel.

``That is a serious gap in the legislative history and format of the statute,`` Gesell said.

``What you are trying to do, at the Department of Justice, is to avoid a confrontation on the constitutionality of the statute,`` he told the attorneys representing the judicial panel. ``That doesn`t make sense to me.``